About me:
coach
Erik Broms
I’m Erik Broms. I’ve worked in product leadership for 20 years in the technology and software industry. And based on what I saw happening to people, ineffective line management, the human cost of the challenges and struggles that you have to deal with in the tech industry, I made a decision to work as a coach. I believe that what drives tech is human power. As a professional coach I want to help people grow. To create their own future - without changing who they are.
My mission and drive
As coach I love to connect and engage with people and learn about their life aspirations. My mission is to give you the impetus you need, to inspire you to start living, acting and leading with more focus and purpose. I focus on building mutual trust between us, so we can work together and you can learn how to create new realities that work better for you. What really helps, is that I understand what tech leaders and professionals are facing, because I was one of them for 20 plus years.
Impetus: force, energy, something that makes a process or activity happen, or happen more quickly
Starting out in software
I was born in 1975 in a suburb to Stockholm, Sweden. I graduated from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) in 2000. Fresh out of university, with my master’s degree in business development and media technology, I moved to Stockholm and worked there as a software development consultant at PwC Consulting for a couple of years. When the IT bubble burst in 2002, I found myself without a job. Philips Consumer Electronics offered me the opportunity to switch and gain more experience as a developer, and so I moved to the Netherlands.
Career in the technology industry
After a year or two, I joined a start-up where my job responsibilities changed with the same pace as the seasons, and soon found myself as a technical product manager, juggling many balls in the air. It was demanding, but strangely addictive. Ever since then I continued to work in the intersection between technology and business, in international companies. I joined TomTom, a fast-growing (or rather, exploding) Dutch company that launched the first personal navigation device ever.
In 12 years time I worked as a program manager, project lead manager, manager product metrics and KPIs, internal auditor and senior product line manager and again found my jobs incredible challenging yet equally addictive. However, I also experienced nearly annual reorganisations with teams having to repeatedly re-form and re-define their scope.
Having stuck with product management as focus area for several years, I joined another well-known Dutch company: Parkmobile. Here I continued with the mix of product management and team leadership responsibilities. The technology industry is rife with turbulence: I witnessed a series of CEOs and the company being acquired by new owners twice, the second being the Swedish company EasyPark. And meanwhile, the company never stopped growing in number of customers and employees.
Impetus Coaching
While my work throughout the years in the tech industry in many ways was rewarding, when it came to leading people I often found that there wasn’t enough time and support for people to learn and grow on the job. When during a training I got the question: “What do you want to change in the next five years?” Without hesitation and to my own surprise, I wrote: “I want to start coaching people.” After some thinking and soul-searching, I made the decision to pursue what I felt is my calling.
I took one-on-one sessions to become a coach. In January 2022 I started working as an internal performance coach while embarking on a programme to become an ontological coach and working towards becoming an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). After a year, I started my own company: Impetus Coaching. In June 2023 I earned my ICF certification, and I earned my Ontological Coach certification in June 2024.
I can help you find ways to change situations that match with who you are.
Feel free to get in touch with me to discuss your questions.
"I found the coaching experience with Erik very insightful and intriguing! He is a fantastic listener with great level of empathy and respect. In my view, what makes him extraordinary is his ability and level of precision to identify the right place to double click and ask follow up questions, which makes myself becoming more aware of my challenges and opens up new opportunities for personal growth. Furthermore, his extensive career background in tech, also add its weight in the credibility of his coaching as it helps build trust and build solid understanding of the context."
- Li Zhen, Head of Product, Corporation's Experience at EasyPark
"Erik has an organic and yet goal-oriented approach. We defined the goals I wanted to achieve upfront at the beginning of the programme and Erik helped me focus on them during our sessions. Erik is very empathic by nature and at the same time is highly professional which was key in building rapport and trust. His profound understanding of the different organizational dynamics in high-tech firms helped me identify new strategies for my own reality/situation. He strikes the right balance between being an attentive listener and an active conversation partner. The sessions with Erik helped me focus on my core strengths to take “my game” to the next level without changing who I am.”
- Software and Security Architect of a Dutch multinational corporation part of the EURO STOXX 50 index.